PROVO — BYU would have likely gone in as the favorite to win it all, and there’s little question otherwise.
During normal circumstances, the BYU men’s volleyball team would be in the Washington, D.C., area this week, the site of the NCAA men’s volleyball championships for a semifinal match on May 7 followed by a hopeful championship match on May 9. The tournament was to involve seven teams, with five of those teams battling for two of the four spots that would compete at George Mason University in the semifinal and then championship rounds.
Given where the Cougars were at back when the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it stands to reason they would have entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed and a guaranteed spot in the final four.
“You look at BYU’s resume up to that point, and its remaining schedule, and yeah, outside of injury I don’t think there’s much doubt they’d be the No. 1 seed in the tournament,” said Vinnie Lopes, publisher of offtheblock.com, a website dedicated to national coverage of NCAA men’s volleyball.
The season was canceled just before BYU was to board a plane to take on Stanford, back on March 13. At that point just six matches remained in the regular season with the Cougars owning a 17-1 overall record and 6-0 mark in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation play. They were also the No. 1-ranked team in the country following a successful road trip to take on then No. 1 Hawaii, where they swept the Rainbow Warriors the first night, followed by a 5-set loss the night after.
Things couldn’t have been lined up much better for the Cougars heading into the final stretch of the season. As Lopes said, it would be hard to find anyone in the country who wouldn’t dub BYU as the favorite to win it all, although being favored doesn’t always translate into an actual championship, as BYU’s recent history teaches.
Together with Lopes, we explored the main reasons for a BYU 2020 championship, along with some reasons why it would have come up short.
Reason for: Best attack in the country
When the AVCA announced its first-team All-Americans, BYU scored three of the 10 spots nationally. All three named headed a powerful front row attack, in outside hitter Davide Gardini, setter Wil Stanley and opposite hitter Gabi Garcia Fernandez.
“BYU’s strength has always been with its (pin-hitters) and this year they may have had the best attack they’ve shown for some time, which is saying something when you consider all the great outside hitters and opposites BYU has had through the years,” Lopes said.
Indeed, fielding the AVCA Player of the Year at opposite, Garcia Fernandez, paired with first-team All-American Gardini helps to free up both, considerably.
Opposing teams have seen success in championship matches shutting down BYU’s most-prolific pin-hitters in recent years, perhaps most notably in 2013.
That year saw BYU enter the championship match as the favorite, going up against a UC Irvine that was able to load up most of its defensive attention on first-team All-American Taylor Sander, while forcing others, including freshman phenom Ben Patch, to beat them. Although the match was tight throughout, BYU found itself unable to score critical points late in all three sets, ultimately losing in straight sets.
Considering the capabilities of not only Garcia Fernandez and Gardini, but also All-American honorable mention Zach Eschenberg, it’s likely BYU’s attack would have proved tough to neutralize, as a result.
Reason for: Ability to receive and pass
To utilize BYU’s front row effectively, the set-up needs to be in rhythm, which brings us to the team’s ability to receive and then pass. Traditionally, receive and pass has been a relative weak spot for the Cougars, although that weakness largely wasn’t apparent during the 2020 season.
“That was the big question mark heading into the season, and the area where I thought BYU may struggle,” Lopes said. “But from what I saw, BYU made big improvements in that area and no, I do not see that as an argument against them winning the championship this year. BYU was a good receiving team.”
Reason for: Serving prowess
BYU’s 2016 ultimate disappointment came down to serving, and there’s not much question otherwise.
Matched up with Ohio State in the championship, the Cougars were again considered the favorite to win it all. But enter Buckeye serving ace Nicolas Szerszen, among others, and BYU was forced out-of-system way too often during the match’s most critical moments, lifting the Buckeyes to a straight-set championship win.
“In that match, if you remember, it was tight in both the first two sets before their serve just sort over overwhelmed us late,” recalled BYU coach Shawn Olmstead. “When you have a dominant server, or several dominant servers, it can change a match dramatically, and you definitely saw that in that match.”
This year the dominant serve was with BYU, and particularly Garcia Fernandez, whose ability to score aces and as importantly, force a team out-of-system, was unmatched by anyone.
“We’ve all seen a tight match go one way or another just by one serving rotation,” Lopes said. “You saw it throughout the year when Gabi’s turn in the rotation came up, that opposing teams just couldn’t handle it and BYU would reel off several points in a row. That’s huge in volleyball.”
But it wasn’t just Garcia Fernandez, as Lopes believed BYU could well be considered the top-serving team in the country, or at least near the top.
“No doubt BYU was a very good serving team this year,” Lopes said. “Wil Stanley was one of the better servers and there wasn’t really a guy in the rotation that wasn’t capable of putting pressure on the opposing team.”
Reason against: UC Santa Barbara, and then Hawaii
Given BYU’s strengths in both serving and attack, it would take a team adept at receiving and passing to counteract it effectively. For what Lopes observed this year, No. 3-ranked UC Santa Barbara very well could have proven BYU’s toughest hurdle, even over No. 2-ranked Hawaii.
“You saw it in the match UC Santa Barbara had with BYU earlier in the year,” Lopes said. “BYU really struggled to win a match that went five sets where you saw the Gauchos able to handle BYU’s serve and attack, probably better than anyone has this year. Santa Barbara is a very good receiving team, so I think matchup-wise, they would have proven BYU’s toughest opponent.”
Lopes believes a No. 1-seeded BYU would have taken on No. 4 seed Lewis in the semifinal round, with Santa Barbara likely squaring off against Hawaii. Assuming they got past Lewis, the Cougars very much would have had their hands full in the championship round.
“Hawaii figured something out in that second match against BYU, where they came back from being down two sets,” Lopes said, referring to Hawaii’s straight-set win over the Cougars on March 6. “Me suggesting Santa Barbara as the tougher opponent certainly doesn’t mean Hawaii wouldn’t prove a tough matchup. Hawaii is obviously a very good team, and yeah, they may have just figured something out that could have given the Cougars trouble, should the two teams have played one another in the championship.”
Prediction
The reasons for a BYU championship greatly outweigh the reasons against, making it hard to predict anything but the Cougars’ first national title since 2004.
Lopes agrees.
“I sort of saw this year’s BYU team as the 1995 Atlanta Braves,” Lopes said. “The Braves finally were able to win it that year after being there so often in the years leading up to it. I mean, they were playing some really, really good volleyball and didn’t show the potential weaknesses past teams had. It seemed like coach Olmstead had coached them up very well and it’s really hard to believe 2020 wasn’t their year.”
Although the 2020 volleyball season came to a crushing premature end, the good news is the Cougars return just about everyone for the 2021 season where they’ll work to recapture the magic of the 2020 season, and perhaps even improve upon it.